BOOK REVIEWS

Book: Empire of the
Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne

[Subtitle: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the
most powerful Indian Tribe in American History.]

The
Comanches operated in what is known as the high plains; a swath of land from
Colorado, southwest through Texas; and had done so for hundreds of years. The
most salient fact about the high plains was that no trees existed there; it rained
very seldom, which supported the high grasses, and the millions of Buffalo that
roamed there freely.

The
Comanches were the largest and most powerful tribe that existed in American History.
Yet, shockingly, they were not organized. There were many Comanches tribes who co-existed
with their fellow Comanche tribes. But they had no one Chief or CEO or Top Dog
over all Comanche tribes.

Comanches
were arch-enemies of, and had a deep hatred for, the Apaches; who the Comanches
eventually drove off the high plains.

Selected Excerpts:

Few historians would argue that
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which a defeated Mexican republic signed on
February 2, 1848, in the wake of a lopsided war, was as momentous an event in
American history as the signing of the surrender at Appomattox
Courthouse.”

Before
the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty, the American West consisted of the old Louisiana
Purchase lands. In the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty, Mexico gave up its claims north
of the Rio Grande; with that, the U.S. acquired the old Spanish lands which included
Texas, Arizona, Colorado, California, Utah, New Mexico and Nevada.

This
Treaty changed everything in the West. At the time of the Mexican war (1846-1848)
this was still mysterious, dangerous, untraveled land. Much of it (from Canada
to south Texas) had never been explored by white men.

The
continents’ heart had been pierced in 2 places: the Oregon Trail and the Santa
Fe Trail; these were merely highways down which relatively small numbers of
pioneers traveled. They did not draw settlement: westering pioneers did not
stop in the middle of the Oregon Trail and build a cabin.

The
problem for the Comanches was that they now stood directly in the way of
American nationhood. They were now surrounded by a single political entity.
With the annexation of Texas, they were no longer dealing with a quirky,
provincial republic with few resources, devalued currency, and a patchwork
citizenry; they were now a principal concern of the federal government, with
its visions, blue-coated armies, vaults full of tax money and complex politically
charged Indian policies.

In
1849, the flood gates opened. The Gold Rush was the first great exercise of
America’s spatial freedom. People poured giddily into the West in numbers that
would have been unthinkable just a year before.

Comanche
power had long resided in sheer military superiority: the ability, man for man,
to outride and outshoot the non-Comanche residents. Now for the first time,
came a serious challenge. This challenge came in many forms of dirty, bearded,
violent and undisciplined men belonging to no army, wearing no insignia or
uniforms.

They
were called many different names --- finally morphing into a name that
everybody agreed upon i.e. the Texas Rangers.

================

2nd Abridged Excerpt from "Empire of the Summer Moon” by S.C. Gwynne.

The
Texans greatest disadvantage lay in his horse and his horsemanship. American
horses tended to be work plugs, plodding and incapable of running with the
fleet, tough and nimble Indian ponies. Comanches fought entirely on horseback
and in a way no soldier or citizen in North America had ever seen. The
Comanches had been fighting this way for 200 years. War was what they did. The
conquest of the Apaches over a generation had caused a profound change in
Comanche life.

This
war-without-quarter rained down on the hapless white farmer of the western
frontier. The only real chance they had was to circle the wagons and hope they
could kill enough Indians to make it too costly for them continue. Mostly the
settlers did not stand a chance. The Texan solution to these problems was
unique in western military history. About 1835, they started forming ranging
companies that violated every rule of military organization and protocol, every
standard of hierarchy that allow a traditional army to function.

They
were meant to step into the void left by the Army that had fought at San
Jacinto, almost all of which had been furloughed by 1837. They were called
"Rangers” (the first official use of that name); they were commissioned to hunt
Indians and defend the frontier. They were not provided guns, men, mounts,
uniforms, provisions or barracks. The only thing the government reliably
provided was ammunition. Oddly, since almost nothing was given to them, there
seems to have been no real problem with recruitment.

The
western part of Texas in those days was awash in young, reckless, single men
with a taste for wide open spaces, danger and adventure. They liked the idea of
killing Comanches and Mexicans. Without them the idea of ranging companies
would never have worked. Texas primitive Indian fighting organizations
developed from 1836-1840.

The
Rangers were simply what was needed, and they grew organically from that
premise. Since they were untried young men and did not know any better, they
adapted quickly to the lethal new world of horses and weapons and Indian
tactics. The Rangers were a rough bunch. As time went by, and so many of them
were killed, it created a sort of natural selection in their ranks; they got
even rougher, more brutal and more aggressive.

So, it was remarkable that this group of
violent, often illiterate and unmanageable border ruffians would give their
full and unswerving allegiance to a quiet, slender 23-year-old with a smooth,
boyish face, sad eyes and a high-pitched voice.

His
name was John Coffee Hays. He was
called "Jack”. The Comanches, who feared him greatly, called "Captain Yack”.

He
was the uber-Ranger, the one everyone wanted to be like, the one who was braver
and smarter and cooler under fire than any of the rest of them. He was one of
the finest military commanders America has ever produced. Though he fought on
the Texas frontier and Mexico for less than 12 years, he personally put an
indelible stamp not only on the Texas Rangers --- an organization that might be
said to have arisen in imitation of him --- but also the American West.

John
Coffee "Jack” Hays was not afraid of anything. He was the first great Indian
fighter on the plain’s frontier --- he was the legend that spawned a thousand
other legends, dime novels and Hollywood movies. He began to make a name for
himself as an Indian fighter, especially one who knew how to keep his men
alive. In 1840, at the age of 23, Hays became Captain of the San Antonio
station of the Rangers. They had been officially established by the Texas
Republic, but they had to furnish their own arms, equipment, horses and food.
There was no pay at first.

Hays
demanded that his recruits learn how to ride. They used agile and fast horses,
the product of local breeding of mustangs with the Kentucky, Virginia and
Arabian strains. Those horses were heavier than Indian mounts, but they could
run with the Comanche mustangs and keep up with them over long distances. Under
Hays the ranging companies, rarely numbering more than 15-20 men, began to
behave more like the Indians they hunted.

They
moved as lightly over the prairie as the Indians did, and lived as the Indians
did, without tents, using a saddle for a pillow at night. Each man had one
rifle, two pistols and a knife. Like the Comanches, the Rangers often traveled
by moonlight. Hays’ men would sleep fully clothed and fully armed; ready to
fight at a minute’s notice.

None
of this behavior had any precedent in American military history. No cavalry
anywhere could bridle and saddle a horse in less time than the Rangers. Hays
insisted that his men practiced both shooting and riding. Note that these men
were charging and shooting on horseback, a concept taken entirely from the
Comanches. It represented an enormous advance in anti-Indian warfare. No one
who had fought Comanches ever believed that there was any advantage to fighting
them dismounted, on open ground.

Despite
his success fighting Comanches, Hays still faced one very large and intractable
problem; his single-shot, hard to reload rifles and old-style pistols. They put
his men at a severe disadvantage against Comanches who carried 20 arrows in
their quivers.

In
1830, a 16-year-old with big ideas and a knack for intricate mechanics, named
Samuel Colt was working on a revolving pistol. In 1838, the manufacture of the
.36 caliber, 5-chambered revolving pistol began. However, the U.S. Government
could not see any application for it and refuse to subsidize it. Nor did the
pistol seem to interest private citizens. But in 1939 the 2ndPresident of the Republic of Texas (following Sam Houston) ordered the Texas
Navy to order 180 of these pistols.

These
pistols were never used by the Texas Navy but somehow, they ended up in the
hand of John Coffee Hays. The Rangers immediately grasped the significance of
this revolving pistol. The new Colt revolver had many weaknesses. It was
fragile. The caliber of bullets were too light; and it was not terribly
accurate.

It
used preloaded cylinders which meant a Ranger armed with 2 pistols and 4
preloaded cylinders, had 40 shots. The Rangers practiced until they could be
effective with the Colt revolving pistols. But the cylinders were difficult to
change and when they were empty, a man in the field could not reload them.
That, however, did not change the basic, astounding fact of a revolving
chamber. The Rangers were convinced of it’s potential.

The
test came in what is known as the Battle of Walnut Creek. It became the
defining moment in the history of Texas and the American West. Hays and 14 of
his men attacked 75 Comanches. The Rangers were dropping Comanches at an
alarming rate. They killed 40 Comanches but after an hour, the Rangers ran out
of ammunition. Hays coolly called out and found one of his men who still had a
bullet in his pistol. He told his man to locate the Chief and shoot him. He
did.

The
Comanches in wild affright, at the loss of their leader, scattered in every
direction --- which is common behavior for Comanches.

Though
it would take a while for everyone else on the frontier to realize what had
happened at Walnut Creek, it would take the Mexican War to make the U.S.
Government understand what it meant --- a fundamental paradigm-shattering
change had occurred. The Americans could now fight entirely mounted against the
Indians with pistols that "never emptied”, whose frequency of firing nearly
matched that of the Comanches (who were known to be able to fire off 10 arrows
in a minute). The odds had been evened up.

Still
no one outside of Texas understood what Samuel Colt had done. In 1844, Colt’s
invention was a failure. His company had gone bankrupt in 1842. Colt did keep
his patents. He spent 5 years in poverty. Colt had heard of the success of the
Ranger and wrote to a member of the Rangers named Samuel Walker.

The
war in Mexico had started and the Texas Rangers had volunteered. They made an
extraordinary impression on the U.S. Army in Mexico. It was like nothing anyone
had ever seen before. Unlike almost everyone else in the Army, the Rangers
preferred to fight mounted. The Rangers 5-shot revolving pistols and their
ability to wield them with deadly accuracy from horseback, were the wonder of
the Army. So much so, that the Army ordered 1,000.

There
was one problem. Colt had not made a revolver in 5 years. Also, he had no money
and no factory. But with his Army contract in hand for 1,000 pistols at $25
each, he convinced his friend Eli Whitney to make the pistols. Then, something
remarkable happened. Colt asked Samuel Walker to help him with a new design.
Walker explained that it need a bigger caliber, it had to be heavier, more
rugged with a longer barrel. It was Colt’s idea to use 6 chambers instead of 5.

The
result, the .44 caliber Walker Colt, was one of the most effective and deadly
pieces of technology ever devised, one that would kill more men in combat than
any sidearm since the Roman Short Sword. It saved Samuel Colt. Despite losing a
few thousand dollars on the deal, Colt later became one of the richest men in
America. =====================

3rd Abridged Excerpt from "Empire of the
Summer Moon” by S.C. Gwynne.

Since
the Great Plains were well known for not having trees, and since all Comanche
tribes were nomadic, what, you ask, did they use for fires? It turns out that
dry Buffalo dung, makes great fire wood. And back then there were millions of
Buffalo on the Great Plains.

On
December 29, 1845, Texas became the 28th State to join the Union.
The Texas State legislature chose their 2 allotted U.S. Senators --- one of
which was the former President of the former Republic of Texas: Sam Houston.
[Note: U.S. Senators were selected that way until the 17th Amendment
was passed in 1913].

Aside
from the sheer onslaught of immigrants (Germans, French, Norwegians, etc.) that
were pushing westward into Texas, the other attraction for living in Texas was
that each family head, that was willing to settle in Texas, was given (free)
4,000 acres tax free. The Parker family was well-off as it was but there were
several Parker families immigrating to Texas together. So, they owned a lot of
land.

The
book goes through several various Comanche raids on various Texas farmers. But
the focal point at this point in the book was Cynthia Ann Parker --- which we
first heard about in the beginning of the book --- when (in 1836), at the age
of 10, she was kidnapped by Comanches who killed her father and mother. After
the Comanches had kidnapped Cynthia Ann Parker and taken her to their location,
she somehow survived the Comanche women, who liked to torture white women
captives, and managed to meet and marry the main Comanche Chief (she was one of
his 2 wives) and had 3 children by him. When I ask people if they were familiar
with the name Cynthia Ann Parker, most looked at me like "who?”.

Cynthia
Ann Parker was a very well-known name at the time (1837-1860). Mainly because
one of her uncles, who survived the Comanche attack, was not only out looking
for her for years; but was also advertising in local newspapers, for all those
years, that he was looking for his brother’s daughter: Cynthia Ann Parker.

Some
years after Cynthia Ann had already assimilated into her particular Comanche
tribe, and had had children, some white Texas trapper, who had heard of her,
discovered her while visiting the tribe. He was able to communicate with her,
only to find out that she did not want to leave the tribe. That was shocking
news when it hit the local newspapers.

This portion of the book, was written to make a point. When Comanches
fought, they were particularly brutal. The story (in 1860) that caused a
gigantic upset in the community and set several actions in motion, was when a
peaceful family, who were living on their own property on the Plains, were
having dinner in their own cabin.

Several
Comanches walked into their cabin uninvited but regardless of that, the family
invited them to sit down and join them for dinner. After dinner, the Comanches
killed the man and gang-raped and scalped his 9-month pregnant wife; and left
her. She did not die --- for a few days. She made it back to her cabin where
she was found and was lucid enough to explain what had happened. She died
within days and her baby died as well. However, the news got into the local
newspapers. There was total outrage in the community.

Reportedly
hundreds of families just pulled up stakes and headed back east. But the
outrage was so great, that some brave men, who had stayed, started to organize
a posse to go after the Comanches. Their hatred of Indians was intense. After
Texas gained Statehood (1845), the Texas Rangers were disbanded, replaced by
the U.S. Army, who had no clue how to fight Indians. John Coffee "Jack” Hays
had joined the Gold Rush and was long gone --- now the Sheriff in San
Francisco. There were no Texas Rangers to call on.

The
locals did not discern between the various Indian tribes. The Comanches were
the worst, but to the locals, they were all Indians; Indians were Indians ---
now they hated all Indians. They locals who stayed, managed to get together
roughly 100 men to go after the "Indians”. The Indians they were trailing were
the Comanches who raped that women.

The
Texans went to a location where a scout had last seen several hundred "Indians”
(Comanches). By the time they got there, they found that only a few dozen were
still there --- mainly women --- they were just finishing packing up their
belongings and meat, preparing to leave and follow their men, who apparently
had left a few days before. In their rage, the Texans attacked and killed
anything that was there (men, women and children).

Several
Comanches ran and were tracked down and killed. One Comanche who ran, was
carrying a baby --- she turned and pulled her top open to 1) show her breasts
so they would see that she was a woman, and 2) to show that she was white.
Indians were generally brownish; so "white” stood out. For some reason, they
did not kill her. But they tracked down a male Indian (Comanche) who was
further away and killed him. He turned out to be Peta Nocona, Chief of the most
powerful Comanche tribe on the Plains who had foolishly stayed back to help his
wife --- who was the "white” woman they had just captured.

It
turns out, their 2 sons were also there but had gotten away; one of which was Quanah,
who later became the baddest Comanche of them all, on the Great Plains.

When
the Texans discovered that they had captured Cynthia Ann Parker, and the
locals found out, they were very interested. She was treated like a new zoo
animal. One of her uncles came to her rescue. Of course, she did not want to be
rescued by white people. But she slowly came around; partly because her young
daughter "Prairie Flower” (the baby she had when captured) was getting along
well with the other white kids and was learning English rapidly. Things were
getting better for Cynthia Ann until Prairie Flower got sick and died from
pneumonia. It was too much for Cynthia Ann and she went into a health decline
and finally died of influenza 6 years later.

In
January 1861, the anti-Union sentiment in Texas was in full cry. In February 1,
1861, Texas voted to secede from the U.S.A.

On
April 12, 1861, Confederate batteries opened fire on Fort Sumner in Charleston
Harbor, signaling the start of the Civil War.

With a several-year
lapse in the Indian fighting due to the Civil War, Gwynne introduces Quanah Parker.

Quanah was 12 when
his father (Peta Nocona) was killed, and his mother (Cynthia Ann Parker) was
captured. Since Quanah’s father had been a powerful Chief, when Quanah reunited
with his Comanche tribe, he instantly became a little renowned orphan; not at
all enhanced by being half-White. But Quanah was smart, and he was physically
very agile. He was several inches taller than the other Comanche boys. He made
a name for himself during this period when no White folks were out trying to
kill Indians.

Quanah Parker emerges
later as a vicious foe when the fighting against the Indians picks up again
after end of the Civil War (May 1865).

What became more
noticeable, reading this book for the 2nd time, is how unorganized
and totally inept Indians were back then. They owned the Great Plains for well
over 150 years and did nothing with it. The modern horse was introduced to
North America in 1519 by the Spanish conquistadors Hernán Cortés brought 15
horses to the Mexico mainland.

Comanches emerged as
a distinct group before 1700, when they broke off from the Shoshone people living along the upper Platte River in Wyoming. In 1680, Comanches acquired horses from the Pueblo Indians after the Pueblo Revolt. They separated from
Shoshones, as the horses allowed them greater mobility in their search for
better hunting grounds.

The horse was a key
element in the emergence of a distinctive Comanche culture. It was of such
strategic importance that the Comanche broke away from the Shoshone and moved
southward to search for additional sources of horses which the Comanche
utilized for transportation (they were nomadic), trade and most importantly:
war and for hunting buffalo.

The Comanche may have
been the first group of Plains natives to fully incorporate the horse into their
culture. War was their culture.

Comancheria, the former
territory of the Comanche including large portions of Texas, Colorado, New
Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas

By 1770 the Comanches
were "so skillful in horsemanship that they had no equal, so daring that
they never asked for or granted truces, and in possession of such a huge
territory that they had no need to covet the trade pursued by the rest of the
Indians." During that time, the Comanche population increased dramatically
because of the abundance of buffalo, an influx of Shoshone migrants, and their adoption of
significant numbers of women and children taken captive from rival groups.

Comanches never
formed a single cohesive tribal
unit, but were divided into almost a dozen autonomous groups,
called bands. These groups shared the same language and culture, and rarely
fought each other. They were estimated to have taken captive thousands of
people from the Spanish, Mexican, and American settlers in their lands.

This
statement above bears repeating: Comanches never formed a single cohesive
tribal unit. There was no one Overload, No CEO or No Head of the Comanche
nation; there were many Chiefs. Comanches NEVER created a system of government.
They NEVER advanced their culture. They shunned farming, building houses, or
otherwise absorbing part of the culture that was starting to surround them. The
one and only measurement or method of moving up in a Comanche tribe was to be a
great warrior. That was it!!!The
one and only measurement of wealth amongst Comanches, was the number of horses
(and later cattle) they had.

It
was stunning what happened to the Comanches. It is a testament to failure on a
grand scale. On the flip side, it makes it more remarkable how the U.S.A.
developed and came to become the 50 United States of America.

The
Comanche nation was down from over 12,000 to 4,000. The hunting and killing of
Comanches and various "White Man” diseases had killed
thousands of Indians (including Comanches). It is remarkable how long it took
the Comanches to figure out (due to the Civil War) that border defenses had
lapsed; and how long it took them to grasp this massive shift in the balance of
power. The Comanches had no way to, and apparently no interest in, developing
an adequate, reliable and fast Comanche-wide communication systems.

With
the Civil War going on, various Indian tribes now had time to settle some
scores. There was plenty of Indian-on-Indian killings. Some Indian Tribes had started to accept moving to Reservations. While no organized
groups were hunting and killing Indians, it did not stop the explosion of
settlers moving into Texas. Indians did not like settlers. There was one
instance where Sioux Indians rebelled from their Reservation and killed over
800 white settlers. It was the highest civilian wartime toll in U.S. history
prior to 9/11.

By
1863 it had become clear to most of the free-ranging horse tribes on the
southern plains that there were no solders to stop them. By 1864, they were
riding roughshod into settlements from Colorado to South Texas. Huge stretches
of land that had been settled as far back as the 1850s became completely
depopulated. Comanches completely shut down the Santa Fe Trail. The Overland
Mail abandoned its stations for 400 miles. Cheyenne
raids cut off supplies to the Colorado mining camps where people were starving.

The frontier again rolled back, in some cases up to 200 miles, cancelling 2
decades of westward progress. In October 1864, a force of 700 Comanches and
Kiowa warriors, under Comanche Chief Little Buffalo, rode across the Red River
and attacked a settlement consisting of 60 houses. There was nothing to stop
them. No fear of Rangers or federal forces. No commanders like John
Coffee Hays.

This
sort of raid was duplicated all along the frontier this year. In late 1864,
Brigadier General James Carleton, ranking U.S. Army office in the territory of
New Mexico, along with legendary scout Kit Carson, conducted a massive campaign
against the Navajos in New Mexico, finally forcing 8,000 of them on to a
reservation. Unfortunately, that reservation was on the margin on Comancheria.
It was not long before the western Comanche bands figured out how exquisitely
vulnerable their old enemies were; swooping down attacking Navajo villages,
stealing sheep, horses, women and children.

Carleton
was infuriated by the relentless Comanche attacks on army supply caravans on
the Santa Fe Trail. Those supply caravans contained both food that would ensure
the Navajo’s survival and the communications that served as the General’s only
contact with his colleagues out east. In November 1864, Carleton dispatched
Colonel Kit Carson on a punitive expedition into the most remote and
historically inviolable of the Comanche heartland, in the Texas Panhandle,
inhabited by the fiercest and most remote Comanche Tribes. Only a few white men
had been there before. No Texas Ranger had ever had the courage to track
Comanches into that area; that had long been considered certain death.

Perilous
though it was, if there was one man in the country who could actually lead such
an expedition, that man was Kit Carson.

Kit
Carson was one of the most storied figures in the American West. He was a
national hero. He had married several Indian wives, was fluent in a number of
Indian languages, and he was a successful Indian fighter, including against
Comanches. He knew what he was doing. On November 14, 1864, four days after
Abraham Lincoln was reelected President and the day after Sherman burnt down
Atlanta, Carson rode out of camp with 14 officers, 321 enlisted men, and 72 Apaches
and Ute scouts.

The
Utes were bitter, traditional enemies of the Comanches, and the Utes were not
frightened, as most white men were, by the appalling emptiness of the buffalo
plains. After 12 days, the scouts spotted the Comanche and Kiowa lodges. That
night, they rode silently and in darkness down into the Canadian River valley,
under strict orders not to talk or smoke. They dismounted and stood shivering
in heavy frost and holding their horses by their bridle reins until the first
grey streaks of dawn.

They
moved forward at daylight, dragging with them two Howitzers. The Howitzers were
short-barreled, large-caliber guns that fired 12 lb payloads. Their advantage
was that they were extremely mobile. They also packed a nasty wallop,
especially when used against crowds of people. They fired two types of ammo:
spherical case shot and canister.

Spherical
case shot consisted of a single round iron shell filled with 82 musket balls
packed in sulfur with a small bursting charge of gunpowder. Canisters turned
the Howitzer into the equivalent of a giant sawed-off shotgun, spewing 148
.69-caliber lead musket balls with every shot. No one among Carson’s troops
knew that the two Howitzers would mean the difference between life and death,
victory and defeat for the expedition.

About
8:30am, Carson’s troop swept into a Kiowa village of 176 lodges and caught them
completely by surprise. Meanwhile, Carson’s main force pressed toward the much
larger Comanche camp. They stopped at the ruins of a trading post known as
Adobe Wells. There, about 10:00am, they engaged 1600 Comanche and Kiowa
Indians. The battle did not last long. The Howitzers, which had been dragged,
set up and loaded on a 30’ hill nearby, fired. Instantly, the Comanches and
Kiowas, who had been charging furiously along the battle-line stopped, stood
high on their stirrups, and watched as the case shot exploded and exploded
again.

No
weapon like this had ever been seen on the high plains. In the account of
Captain George Pettis, who was with Carson at Adobe Wells, "the hostiles gazed,
for a single moment in astonishment, then, guiding their horses away from us,
and giving one concerted, prolonged yell, they went on a dead run for their
village. When the 4th shot was fired, there was not a single enemy
within the extreme range of the two Howitzers.”

Instead
of pursuing the fleeing Indians, Carson gave his men a break; they had been
marching or fighting for 30 hours straight. After eating, drinking and
relaxing, Carson’s idea was to mount up and go finish the Indians off. However,
in the 30 minutes that Carson’s men had relaxed, the Indians had regrouped. The
battle resumed at full intensity and it soon became clear that the Comanches
and Kiowas had figured out at least some of the antipersonnel characteristics
of the Howitzers.

The
Chiefs spread their warriors out. Pettis wrote "Their policy was to act singly
and avoid getting into masses. The tactic worked and the Howitzers were only
fired a few times. On one of those occasions, the shell passed directly through
the body of a horse on which a Comanche was riding at full gallop and went some
300 yards before it exploded. The horse, on being struck, went head-foremost to
earth, throwing his rider 20’ into the air with his hands and feet sprawling in
all directions.”

Meanwhile,
the Indians mounted a furious attack. But something else was happening. Carson
noticed that more and more additional Comanches were joining the battle, Pettis
noted that Carson’s forces were facing what appeared to be over 3,000 Indians
under the legendary Comanche Chief Ten Bears. After 5 hours, it was getting to
be mid-afternoon, Carson gave the order to fall back. They went back to a small
Kiowa village, but it was full of Indians. After a while, Carson was
surrounded; they could not get into the village.

Carson
ordered the Howitzers be taken to a small hill near the Kiowa village and they
boomed forth case and canister, driving the Indians out of the village and
allowing his men in. They plundered it --- the lodges were full of coveted
buffalo robes --- and then burned it down. Darkness fell and Carson’s retreat continued.
The Indians followed. Carson’s men rode almost continuously for 4 days. The
Indians did not renew their attack. They had just fought one of the largest
battles ever fought on the Great Plains. ==========================

Ranald Slidell Mackenzie graduated 1st in his class at West
Point in 1862. In 1861, another well-known name is introduced: George
Custer --- who finished last in his West Point class. Both served in the Civil
War. Mackenzie served with more distinction. By Appomattox, he held the brevet
ranks of Brigadier General of the regular Army, and Major General of the
Volunteers. He was 24 years old.

After the Civil War,
Mackenzie remained in the Army, reverting to his actual rank of Captain. By
1867, he was promoted to Colonel and took command of the 41stInfantry (an all-black regiment). By 1971, he was given the command of the 4thCavalry on the frontier. In one battle, Mackenzie had 2 of his fingers blown
off --- thereafter his men called him "3-finger Jack”. [It was never explained
where the name "Jack” came from; it appears to have been a popular nickname.]
This, as much as anything else, was a major step in the end of the Comanches.
Meanwhile, George Custer, who had also stayed in the Army, had been given the
command of the 7th Cavalry. We all know what finally happened to
Custer.

This period saw much
more hunting and killing of Comanches and other Indians. Mackenzie had the
largest force that had ever been on the plains. By this point, the Army had
both Colt revolvers and repeating Spence carbines with several hundred rounds
each. The U.S. Army now had the upper hand. The Comanches had nothing like
them.

On the other side,
Quanah had become a Chief, alongside Bull Bear and Wild Horse. Quanah was Chief
of the most terrifying group of Comanches remaining on the plains. It was soon
discovered that Quanah was a brilliant tactician who made Mackenzie’s job very
much more difficult. It was a case of too little, too late.

It was downhill for
the remaining Comanches and other Indian tribes. Indian Reservations were
becoming much more attractive. The free Comanches were running out of time. The
continued influx of immigrants (Germans, French, English, Spanish,
Scandinavians, etc.) demanded a larger, more powerful presence of the U.S.
Army.

The
U.S. Army could now establish and maintain bases on the frontier itself --- meaning
they could stay out hunting Comanches indefinitely. The Comanches were nomadic
and did not have that option; not to mention how much easier it was to track
them --- they did not use wheels --- all their possessions were dragged on
poles.

Mackenzie was the
most successful Indian fighter on a massive scale. He made a highly significant
contribution to the exploration and opening of the Great American West. He had
found two routes across the treacherous plains. The discovery of the roads and
the good water would make it possible to keep Indians constantly on the run
until they would surrender, or all be surprised and captured or killed.

The Comanches were
losing their identity. Where once there were tens of thousands of Comanches, in
single unified bands, living in camps that wound for miles along the Brazos or
Canadian or Cimarron rivers, now groups blurred affiliations numbering only in
the hundreds --- huddled together against the harsh emptiness of the plains.

By 1890, Quanah was
known as "Quanah Parker: Principal Chief of the Comanches”. There had never
been such a person before in the history of the Comanche Tribe. By this time,
he had surrendered and was living on a Reservation in Oklahoma. He died there in
1911.

Buffalo
hides were valuable. Between 1870-1881, at least 31 million Buffalo were killed
--- stripping the plains almost entirely --- destroying any last hope of that
any horse tribe could be restored to its traditional life. Buffalo, like Comanches,
were not the most intuitive. Buffalo would stand in a group and not move while
one after the other was shot dead. The Comanches were not the brightest.

The Comanches were the largest, most bad-ass Indians on the High
Plains. They owned it all, once they chased the Apaches et al off. There was
nothing to get in their way, on the Great Plains, for hundreds of years. The
Comanches did nothing to capitalize on their fantastic opportunistic situation.
Forget that the Indians in general did not coalesce and form any sort of
government; the Comanches themselves did not coalesce. There were 5 major bands
of Comanches and they did not form one overarching group. Other than not
killing each other, there was no one leader. The best a Comanche could do was
fight and accumulate a lot of horses. Incredible!!

Comanches had no knowledge of Europe, Roman Armies, or
the like. They had no hierarchy. They NEVER researched, developed or created:
houses, farms, hospitals, colleges, Engineers, Doctors, Artists, electricity,
plumbing, roads, sewers, water systems, etc. The men fought and hunted; the
women had children, cooked and did all the chores.

The only advancements the Comanches ever made were when they
acquired and learned about horses, and later when they got Colt Revolvers. They
started using things like pots, blankets, etc. but that was only due to their
haul from killing Americans. They never learned even from that. It never made
them curious as a body of people.

Considering that they had the High Plains all to themselves
basically for hundreds of years, it is startling. While they could have never
stopped the onslaught of the westward migration of Americans, they could have
been a much more formidable force that could have negotiated better terms.

Now a couple hundred years later, they have Casinos which brings in
a lot of money for the benefit of their fellow Indians. This will allow Indians
to advance more than they have. Their children will have access to higher
learning institutions which will translate into Indians in general becoming
better absorbed into American society. All good.

There are similarities in the U.S. today along the lines of
shrinkage. Fraternal organizations like: Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW),
American Legion, Elks, Free Masons, Knights of Columbus, Sons of Norway and
other fraternal organizations are all shrinking. The advent of Cable TV,
freeways and the internet is dramatically diminishing their numbers.

It is very possible that all military veterans, who belong to one of
the veteran groups, may coalesce into one central veteran organization. Unlike
warring Indians, there will always be an unending stream of U.S. military
veterans. So, veteran organizations will survive --- but maybe not as they do
today.